Thread

1. ecshafer · 1790700742 · focus · HN ↗

   Legalizing sports betting and online gambling was such a massive mistake. They are sleazy immoral industries that profit on suffering.

   1. juiceland · 1790701684 · focus · HN ↗

      Legalizing targeted advertising was a massive mistake too.

      1. tripleee · 1790710635 · focus · HN ↗

         Advertising needs to be more targeted if anything. I don't want to see a bunch of irrelevant junk - I want to see high quality products that are useful to my life.

         1. juiceland · 1790711462 · focus · HN ↗

            "I like being manipulated so I think everyone should be manipulated" is certainly A Take in 2026.

            1. tripleee · 1790712038 · focus · HN ↗

               Is your idea that manipulative advertising actually works based on anything? Trying to make people want something they don't already want is a massive waste of money.

               1. rurp · 1790718186 · focus · HN ↗

                  Yes, based on it being one of the largest most profitable industries in the world. There is an immense amount of data showing that shoveling ad money into a product will convince some percent of people to buy it. Or just glance at the ads that fill up most people's Facebook feed and Google SERPs; it's mostly crap that looks flashy but few seconds but that few if any people actually have a real need for.

                  I've personally blocked who knows how many tens of thousands of ads online over the past couple decades. Somehow I doubt my life is lacking for not buying hundreds of extra products I would have learned about from all those targeted ads.

                  1. tripleee · 1790718389 · focus · HN ↗

                     I'm talking about manipulative advertising. Showing someone a product that they're interested in and then go on to buy isn't manipulative.

                     1. juiceland · 1790798846 · focus · HN ↗

                        Let's work off of dictionary.com's definition of manipulation:

                        >to manage or influence skillfully, especially in an unfair manner.

                        I think we can agree that advertisers influence skillfully, given that advertising firms don't typically pick their executives from a pool of unskilled labor. If I were taking your position, I would take issue with the qualifier "unfair" here. After all, what's unfair about showing a product that people are interested in? Isn't that what they want? To be shown things that are interesting? People don't often go to uninteresting movies, or sit through uninteresting lectures. Surely it saves everyone a lot of time to skip through the uninteresting products and get right to the ones that actually make sense for a person to buy.

                        This is where it gets interesting. Targeted ads a not simply "showing a person something they are interested in, because in order to show something to someone who is interested in it, we have to have a willful expression of that interest. When a person goes to a car dealership, they don't say "hey! It's unfair that you're showing me all these cars!" because, well, they expressed interest in cars by showing up at a car dealership and asking for a person to show them around.

                        Targeted ads do not take in willful signals. They take in surveillance data. They watch how a person moves and infer things about them; they assess when the right moment of low will power exists, to insert the ad at just the right moment of influence-ability. That is what is unfair about them, because it subverts the social contract around the purchase of goods and services. Instead of making one's product so good that the most number of people will buy it, they follow people around to find the time they are most vulnerable to what they're selling.

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